From the ’60s to this moment, Iggy Pop has been a solid reminder of what happens when an artist stays true to himself only and doesn’t give a damn about the rest of it. For this, there is a price to be paid, and most of us cannot and would not have the stamina or the sheer guts to foot the bill.
Elvis Presley has been crowned “the King of Rock & Roll” by someone somewhere, and apparently, it has stuck. That’s fine, kings are swell. I have always maintained that Iggy Pop is the Heavyweight Champion of Rock & Roll.
In our lifetime, there will be no other like him. There is no one alive in music who has been battling the forces of nature like Iggy. Nope, sorry, not Mick Jagger, who, in all his uncontested greatness, has left only a small fraction of the blood onstage that Iggy Pop has. Anyone else? I’ll answer — no, there is not.

Every time I put on an Iggy album in the store it seems to remind our patrons where our roots are. Rule breaker, boundary pusher, poetic pornographic libido spewer. Whirring like a drunk gyroscope without a care of where he’s been or where he’s going. Iggy’s Stooge was always living in the moment, obnoxious and profound within the same guitar stroke. A voice and a personae like no other. He keeps on rockin’ like Jack LaLanne, except insane.

Look for a new Iggy Pop album called “Après” (which means “after” in french) to come out on May 14, 2012.